Stone of Ascension (28 page)

“Why do you think she lied?” the Ancient interceded, his sharp voice breaking through the hostility.

Damian’s attention cut to the man. “If she is a Shifter, how could she not know?”

“It was you who wore the mark of a Shifter, not she,” the man countered. “Yet you deny being one. Is it not possible that there are parts of her even she does not know about? That there is more at play than what is simply perceived?”

Strained silence followed his question. The food was forgotten as the three table occupants faced off in a battle of mute strength. Each of them struggled for what they believed in the face of strong opposition. The energy shifted around them in slow coils of tightening hostility. Mistrust disguised as anger pressed against Amber in a sickening hold that threatened to choke the air from her lungs.

After a long moment, Damian surged to his feet to pace the perimeter of the room. His hands were clenched on his hips in a pose that Amber now recognized as one filled with indecision and frustration.

Her bird sympathized with him and urged her to follow. However, she was just as angry and confused as he was. His actions hurt far worse than if he’d struck her across the face.

Amber closed her eyes and inhaled through her nose, seeking a clarity that had eluded her since that night in January when that man who sat so calmly at the end of the table gave her the stone. The object that started it all and led her to where she was at that moment. Opening her eyes, she returned to the beginning.

“Why did you give me the stone?”

In contrast to the atmosphere of the room, the man smiled. “Because you
are
the Marked One—the one in the world who can decide which way the battle will turn. The stone belongs to you. I was only holding it until it was needed.
Now
is that time.”

She licked her lips. “Do I dare ask why?”

His face became serious, all pretense of joviality dropping with the curve of his lips and the stiffening of his spine. “Because the dragon is awake.”

“I don’t understand.”

“With the coming together of The Two, he stirred within his cage, his thousand years of slumber completed. A multitude of elements have collided at this exact moment in time to make it happen. But those are irrelevant to what is next. The Year of the Dragon is far more important than any suspect—by its end, the dragon will be free. There is little we can do to stop that end, but there is much we can do to stop his rise.”

The man’s words only confused Amber more. “What dragon?”

The Ancient shifted his gaze to Damian, who still paced behind her. “Damian. Tell her what dragon I speak of.”

Damian cursed under his breath before she felt his irritated movements grow still. She kept her back to him, unwilling to show him anything else.

“The dragon he refers to is the Shifter leader, Gog,” Damian stiffly answered.

“Ah, so you do understand the importance of where we are,” the Ancient said to him.

“If what you say is true, then of course I do.”

“And why would I lie?” the man questioned. “If you let yourself feel, if you believed as I said, then you would know what I say is true, without me having to tell you. In fact, I think you do—only you refuse to accept it.”

A low growl echoed through the room. A frustration that Amber could empathize with. “But how? The dragon has been trapped in his metal cage deep within the earth’s crust for as long as I’ve been ostracized.”

The Ancient tilted his head. “Did you hear what you just said? Think, old one.”

She knew the instant understanding dawned within Damian. The energy exploded within her in a combustible mixture of disbelief, denial and rage. The emotions so potent her spine arched and her head snapped back as if she’d received a sharp kick between her shoulder blades. Even if she didn’t get the importance of what was happening, it was clear that Damian did.

“No.” The denial fired from Damian with a hot blast of sizzling energy. The angry waves rolled through the room in a fit of frustration. “It’s not possible.”

“Why not?” the man challenged. “Because you don’t want it to be? Denial will not change the facts.”

Another harsh curse, a sharp thump of a fist hitting the wall echoed around the small space. “All this time and no one bothered to tell me. A thousand years of opportunity and not once did anyone see fit to let me in on what was happening?” Bitterness tinged every word, every accusation that Damian hurled at the man.

“To tell you would have changed the necessary outcome. Knowledge would have changed you, and that could not be risked.” The Ancient rose from his seat in a graceful lifting of weight. Amber shifted to follow his path as he made his way to stand before Damian, undeterred by the hostility that radiated from the taller man. “You have endured much so that you can understand much. Empathy built from experience is far more powerful than that gained from words. You are but one of the sacrifices we had to make in order to trap the dragon in the cage.”

“So me being condemned and ostracized for a crime I didn’t commit, that was all planned?”

The other man had the grace to look away before he once again met Damian’s gaze. “The situation presented an opportunity that was seized upon. But it was you who had the grace to walk away despite what you knew to be true. You who forsook all that you were born into for the betterment of the race.”

“How could my leaving hold such power?”

“To challenge the verdict and stay would have cause great strife and unrest within the Energen community. Sides would have formed, battles fought until the good energy was tainted with the very evil Gog fosters. In leaving, you let the good continue. You willingly sacrificed everything that was dear to you and in doing so saved the rest.”

It was Damian’s turn to look away. “How could you know I would react that way? Was that manipulated too?”

“Your actions are your own, Damian,” the Ancient answered. “You know we are not powerful enough to influence that. It is time for you to let go of the guilt you’ve harbored since Khristos’ death. Let his actions be his own.”

Damian cringed, physically wincing away from the words. “And what about Khristos?” he bit out weakly. “Was he also a sacrifice?”

The Ancient gave a slow incline of his head. “Yes, unfortunately.”

Pain—Damian’s—ratcheted through Amber, starting in her chest and pounding outward until it blanketed her in weary misery. Damian stumbled backward until his back smacked the wall and he sagged into the solid mass. He stared blankly at the ceiling, his body a mix of tense nerves and sagging muscle.

The Ancient reached out and rested a hand on Damian’s shoulder. Whether out of exhaustion or defeat, Damian did not pull away from the touch.

“It is much for one family to endure. To give up and sacrifice,” the Ancient sympathized. “It was that sacrifice, one made out of pure honor and love, one given not out of obligation, but from a willingness to do right—to do good—that provided the energy required to bind the bars and hold the beast.”

“Who knew?” Damian asked weakly. “Who else knows the truth?”

The Ancient pulled his touch away and clasped his hands before him. “There are only a few or else the power wouldn’t have worked.”

“My father?”

“No,” the man said with a slow shake of his head.

Damian’s eyes squeezed tightly closed, the pain rippling across his face with a constricting of muscles that traveled down his arms and pooled in the tight clench of his fists.

“Who was the girl?” The question was asked through the stiff hold of his lips. “Why did Khristos kill her?”

The Ancient stepped away from Damian and moved across the room until he was once again facing both of them. Amber pushed to her feet, her legs weak under the weight of the revelations, but she refused to be at a disadvantage. She stood separated from Damian by a few feet, but once again the deep chasm of doubt and mistrust gaped between them.

The man waited until they both looked at him before he finally spoke. “She was a possible Marked One, a descendant of the bloodline that holds the latent Energen gene and the same one from which Amber is birthed. The last bloodline of the ancient Moshup, an Energen who helped the natives after the Energen city was built in what is now called North America.”

The repeated words of the shaman crashed into Amber, forcing her to accept them for what they might be. The truth. The latest disclosure numbed her body and mind until she no longer felt anything.

“Khristos made the right choice when he chose to sacrifice the woman instead of letting the Shifters take her,” the man finished. “Her bloodline was too rich with power to allow the Shifters to gain control of it.”

“But what does all this have to do with me?” Amber’s weariness drifted unwanted into her voice.

“It’s all about choice, young one,” the Ancient said patiently. “We all make choices every day that impact the outcome of our lives. It just happens that the choice you make will affect the lives of many more than you can comprehend.”

“Again, why me?” The sudden weight that pressed upon her shoulders was as physical as a fifty-pound bag of sand being strapped around her neck. Once again, she felt the darkness creeping in, the cold surging through to stoke the fear.

The man looked her over with eyes that held more knowledge and wisdom than existed on the physical plane. Eyes much like the tribal shaman’s at home, only the Ancient’s eyes contained ages of understanding that defied logic. Those eyes moved to Damian before he finally spoke to her.

“Because you, Amber, are blooded of both Energen and Shifter. A dual status held by no other. A power of positive and negative that can flow either way.” He paused before continuing slowly. “Your father was a Shifter. A man who wooed your mother until she fell for his false words and charms. It was the Shifters’ attempt to dilute the bloodline and end the threat of the Marked One. But their attempt backfired when you were born with the exact qualities the energy had been waiting for.”

The answer stopped her thoughts and froze her heart as none other could. How could that be true?

 
“My entire life I have been raised under the perception that I am a normal human with just enough Native American blood to allow me to claim ancestry to the Wampanoag Indian Tribe. A distinction I didn’t even relish.” A small snort of derision left her nostrils. “As the outcast bastard of the tribe’s disgrace, I was subjugated to ridicule and scorn for as long as I can remember. And now you’re telling me that all the garbage about me being the harbinger of destruction that his people”—she pointed at Damian—“have accused me of is also true?”

Unwanted, undesired like always, the tears glistened on the edges of her eyes. She wished it was all false. That everything that had been said was a lie. But a part of her knew it wasn’t. That denial would no longer help her.

“No, child,” the Ancient soothed. “I am not accusing you of that. You alone contain a balance
within
you that has the power to change the equilibrium of the world. There is more to you than most know. Than you know. But you must accept that in order to use it. In order to do what is needed.”

“And what do I need to do?”

“You will need to discover that on your own,” he said kindly, his soft words floating across the room on a wind of patience. “Knowledge gained in discovery is a lesson not forgotten.”

“And if I don’t want to discover it?”

The Ancient’s eyes softened in a look of understanding. “Sometimes discovery is forced upon us despite our wishes to remain clueless. Knowing does not always bring clarity. Likewise, understanding does not make a task easier.”

She resisted the urge to scoff at the man’s cryptic words, which provided more of a puzzle than a solid answer. She needed to think. Time to process everything. So much had been said and revealed that she no longer had any grip on what she felt or wanted. Her world was out of control, a feeling that tore at her orderly life and left her floundering. Even her connection to Damian was now in doubt.

“I want to go home,” she demanded, surprised at the strength in her voice. But going home was exactly what she needed. Hard, even strides moved her until she stood directly before the Ancient. “You have the power. Send me home. That is the choice I am making. The one that is right for me. Send me home. Now.”

The Ancient tilted his head, his long mustache swaying with the movement as he contemplated her demand. Behind her, Damian said nothing. Made no move to stop her.

“If you concentrate, you can do that yourself,” the Ancient finally said.

“I don’t want to concentrate,” she fired back as she took another step closer. “I’m tired. I’ve heard enough of the wild stories and accusations about me and my life. About who
I
am. I did not choose this path.
You
forced it on me with that damn stone. What I do from now on is up to me.” She took a deep breath, an attempt to temper her rising anger. “This is my choice. I am not your pawn to be wielded as you wish.”

“Are you sure this is the choice you want to make, child? To leave is to forsake the protection I am providing.”

She turned back to the man who had stood by her through it all and spoke one word filled with question and her last thread of hope. “Damian?”

His cold paralysis encircled her, the dark edges fighting to creep in around the cracks that extended and widened in her battered soul. The burn of rejection deepened as Damian remained immobile, his silence continuing.